Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi’s administration, proposing a $3.41 billion operating budget for the coming 2024 fiscal year, contends that recent City Council amendments to reduce it to 2022’s level are insufficient to keep the city running smoothly and should be abandoned.

Announced in late March by Council member Radiant Cordero, the Council’s first-round recommendations to a committee draft of budget measure Bill 11 was introduced as a way to balance city services while aiding struggling homeowners and residents. That aid could come in the form of a slew of related real property tax relief measures that are advancing separately under ongoing Council review “to ensure long-term relief for taxpayers.”

“This year, we have seen a $14.1% increase in assessed valuations for real property,” said Cordero in a written statement March 30. “With such a significant increase, we need to seriously consider the impact to our residents.”

Cordero, who chairs the budget committee, said the Council’s amendments work to reduce the mayor’s operating budget to 2022’s level — approved at $3.22 billion — but adds 5% toward city salaries “to ensure collective bargaining is covered.”

“These are taxpayer dollars,” said Cordero, “my goal is that we can finally provide for our community’s needs through Council community additions and provide meaningful tax reform and relief.”

But the city sees the Council’s new budget amendments — reductions totaling about $206.2 million — as wrongheaded.

“All city departments will be impacted,” Carrie Castle, deputy director of the city Department of Budget and Fiscal Services, told the Hono­lulu Star-Advertiser via email. “The resulting total reduction to the mayor’s proposed FY 2024 budget for salaries amounts to approximately $122.3 million.”

The city says those amendments also reduce the mayor’s current expenses budget by $77.7 million and equipment budget by $6.2 million. “The Council amendments to reduce salaries, current expenses and equipment … would reduce the city’s operational capacity to serve the public,” Castle said.

In an April 11 memorandum, Budget Director Andrew Kawano told the Council its planned reductions would be “insufficient to fund executive department salaries” and would not aid the city’s recovery from the pandemic or fill ongoing city vacancies.

“We respectfully request your reconsideration of fully restoring all salaries so we do not lose the positive momentum gained in FY 2023. Also, please consider that we are but two years away from the FY 2021 hiring freeze and the restricted FY 2022 operating budget,” Kawano’s memo reads. “We respectfully urge Council for additional time to reduce departmental vacancies, which are detrimentally affecting the provision of core services to the public.”

Kawano further asserts the Council’s proposed $77.7 million cut to the city’s current expenses can “cause disruption to valuable serv­ices such as maintaining park operations, police and public safety coverage, as well as executing on much needed facility maintenance services.”

Conversely, Kawano said increasing “current expenses” as the mayor’s budget proposes would advance “educational training opportunities for newly hired and existing staff,” which will “improve service to the public and employee retention through job satisfaction and growth.”

To emphasize its argument, the Blangiardi administration in early April solicited comments and concerns from city departments over the Council’s budgetary amendments. To a department, all requested “full restoration” of funding as is found under the mayor’s spending plan.

Among them, the city’s Information Technology Department — which, among other things, manages the city’s computer network and a central data processing operations center on a 24/7 basis — requested full restoration of more than $5.3 million in current expenses to fund two critical systems “that without them, the city and state would shutdown,” the city’s memo reads.

These systems include the mainframe the city uses for service and storage. And also, according to the memo, it “includes the entire statewide REAL ID compliant driver license, State ID, and commercial driver license systems; registration systems for motor vehicle, motorcycle, moped, scooter, bicycle, and trailer systems; and online law enforcement database.”

Likewise, the city’s IT Department further requested the Council fully restore another $1.09 million to its equipment funds “to upgrade our network and infrastructure equipment to prevent successful cyberattacks against the City,” the memo reads.

At the Council’s April 19 meeting, Budget Director Kawano told the panel, “we put a lot of thought into our transmittal, and we got good feedback from the departments.”

In response, Council Chair Tommy Waters confirmed the city’s responses to the Council’s budget amendments “are very thoughtful, and we will definitely be taking a deep dive into that.”

During the same Council meeting, at least one resident, Natalie Iwasa, was not pleased with all of the Council’s amendments. That included over $22.4 million in cuts to salaries and expenses for the city’s road maintenance division, which the mayor’s operating budget had set to more than double that amount — $48.8 million — to cure things like potholes on poorly maintained city roads.

“I’m not sure that’s such a smart move,” said Iwasa of that possible Council budget cut.